USians will abstain from sex or romance rather than stop larping as rich
In my world a date is drinking beer cans after eating some kebab
this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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I do kind of miss when my dates could take place entirely outside a Späti with a walk back to one of our flats if it went well.
I'm really glad that my idea of a date is "play TTRPGs with other autistic trans girls until we know each other well enough that i can come over to her place and watch gay cartoons with her while we cuddle."
Oh, this is more statistics bullshitting, the kind Gould complained about decades ago wrt variation.
14% of Americans say the average date costs them nothing, up from 12% a year ago. At the other end of the spectrum, 14% say a typical date costs $300 or more, up from 11% in 2025.
It's high income people drawing up the mean.
But I'm also skeptical of 1) the implication this is self-reported 2) the broad measurements that include grooming before the date for instance 3) the lack of publicly available methodology 4) the clear ragebait advertising BMO is doing here
You're not dating because you're cheap and/or can't think of low/no-cost date ideas, I'm not dating because I realized engagement with The Apps was making life worse, we are not the same.
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Costco date night. they get a hotdog and a soda. all the refills and samples they want, my treat, while we walk around and i look at bulk socks and underwear.
comrade fancy with the costco membership
There's a law (at least in California, maybe federal?) that sez you can't be members' only where alcohol and pharmaceuticals are concerned, so you should be able to get in for booze and antidepressants, even if they won't let you get socks.
Then why am I bothering with the date?
Because you're in no condition to drive.
They won't let you buy the food either though.
You have to pay for it using your Costco credit card. There was this big thing where they had some Costcos where it was exposed to the outside and kids were going there and getting food and they said last year or the year before basically no more of that, no cash without membership card.
Those laws are by state and county though and they apply to either liquor sales being open to all or pharmacy open to all or both or in some cases maybe neither.
based af
All the comments hating on people for their date location choices but I mean… before I left the US in February, taking my wife out to sushi and a movie would easily cost $200. And we don’t even drink! If you’re trying to have a fun time and go to a bar afterwards, it’s gonna be $200-$300 easy.
Sure, you could split a Big Mac in a public park, but that’s not what most people think about when they hear “date.”
Yeah shit is hella expensive nowadays. Def easy to spend $60-80 on a meal for two after tip in a non-chain restaurant.
Truth.
My partner and I went out last weekend - one cocktail, one cannabis beverage, two entrees: $120.
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I mean, theres kind of a lot between splitting a sandwich at the park, and $200 😅
Things have absolutely gotten too expensive, but if your idea of a date is $200, probably you have the option to just go on a slightly less lavish date... You can go to some super cute local place and have a wonderful time for way less than that, even with it being a more formal date than a "big mac" at the park. Dates don't have to be high end fine dining to be valid dates. And spending less than $200 hardly limits you to big macs 😅
There are tons of really lovely dates you can go on for a hell of a lot less than $200. Which doesnt change the fact that things are too expensive. But at $200 it's not like you have no other options
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You bring that Switch 2. You break out those joycons. You set this up in a park. You bring a case of diet soda. You forgot to initialize the Game Key Card game (Pokemon Pokopia). She scoffs, saying "you don't buy all of your games physically?" and ends the date.
i was gonna cry about americans spending substantially more than my entire monthly salary on a single date but then i saw it's from fortune.com lmao. why would anyone even read the titles of this rag?
I mean if you're going to a bar or club or whatever I would expect it to cost $200. That's why I don't go there. If I was taking someone on a date I'd go to a restaurant, where I would expect to spend like $50, which is still way too much. So I stay home
club
$200
I pay the $10 cover at my local queer club and dance to my heart's content. Sometimes I get a $5-8 drink.
My first date with my current partner, we had a round of drinks (I think I had 4 or 5 cause i hadn't quit drinking then), went back to hers, and then afterwards I put on Yellow Parenti before calling an Uber home at 3AM.
Skill issue.
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I've never really enjoyed restaurant dining. There's a lot of other activities to do that aren't this one traditional "date" format and it's the restaurant that's the majority of the cost.
USians are brainwashed into thinking they need a $200 experience to get to know someone. At that rate it’s cheaper to take half a day off to cook something fancy for a date.
Where I live there is luckily enough people who don’t want these expensive experiences so we get creative on what to do on a date.
I honestly think the formality and spectacle of a nice restaurant date, especially early on, actually gets in the way of getting to know someone. If you go for a walk in a park with a coffee and a chat, then fine yourself excited to see them again then I'd bet you'll have discovered more about each other and how compatible you are.
Going on a restaurant date can give important early information on how they treat workers tho
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"take off your shoes, we're playing smash bros with only pokeballs"
$6-15 per drink, before $2/drink tip
$30 per person for mid level activity (mini golf, movie, paddle boat, Japanese garden, bowling)
$100 dinner. Sit down places cost more, so you're looking at $15/item minimum and if you're going on a date, it's fun to try a few things, so don't be stingy. Once you've spent $80 on an app, 2 entrees, and a fun third thing, you only have $20 left for tip
That's already $200 before bubble tea dessert and karaoke
Do most people live in places where restaurants don't run any cheaper than $30 a person? I have all kinds of options below $20 where I am that aren't even chains.
The last time I was in Chicago for a few days, I made a point of going to a bunch of local places, none of them broke the bank.
What are people doing living in cities that are so arbitrarily expensive that they can't afford anything? There are plenty of other options, and you're going to meet a lot more class-conscious people outside the largest capitalist playgrounds anyway.
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING FOR $200?!
Upscale restaurant and too many drinks. I can go out and spend less than $20, easy (we pay for our own).
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yeah if you go to a "nice" place but splitting a sando and walking in the park is still pretty cheap
sounds tough to get someone to agree to that, if you can even find a person among the bots or someone worth your time in the flood of garbage, depending on who you're trying to date.
Are you trying to find a compatible person for lifelong companionship, or are you trying to find a shallow materialistic person to fuck, where you set a precedent of a transactional relationship?
the former, but neither is readily available. nobody else masks.
Anyone who sticks up their nose specifically at the cheapness of something is not worth dating for very long. The perception that "all prospective dates are looking for an expensive arrangement that the other person pays for" is defeatist and can easily lend itself to confirmation bias.
I have a friend who's a trans man, and he started dating another trans man (baby leftist) a handful of months ago, and was telling me about all these dates they did that were just anarchist calisthenics, i.e. exploring how they could break rules and taboos and social conventions. It sounded fantastic, bro is doing it absolutely right.
if they're not masking around other people it isn't safe to be around them privately. you don't magically stop being a disease vector when you catch feelings. the bar is under ground and the overwhelming majority of americans dig under it rather than protect themselves and their community.
in five years i've seen three other masks, including a hospital visit.
You just gotta hang out with the right people and flirt with all of them until something clicks. I don't fuck with the apps.
ok zero people within 100 miles besides me will wear a mask. i did have a weekly thing before covid but either nobody was interested or they were too coy for me to pick up on it.
nobody to meet on apps, nowhere safe to be around people in person
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Finding the right people is even harder than the apps
It wasn't quick but the age old advice of go to hobby/activity groups, get to know people, and keep showing up eventually pays off. Also, go to shows and festivals and chat people up. I met my (one street over) neighbors at a local festival and now we hang out pretty frequently.
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Who would have thought that not dating makes me a winner.
Well, at least I'm not single 'cause dating is expensive, I'm single 'cause I'm incapable of social interaction with others and I'm offputting interpersonally
I feel you. I've been single so long I've genuinely completely lost interest in dating. Partially cause I'm broken and partially cause the world is. I just don't want any part of it anymore
Wtf no way weed is not that expensive
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